Being an editor of higher education publications was my work, work that matters, but it didn’t define who I was. It was a role that no longer fit me as well as it once had. It was a role ready for someone else because I was ready for something else.
Moving forward requires a refashioning of who you are. It feels like every time I’ve figured out who I am, life happens, and I’m left scrambling to figure it out again and again and again. It’s an endless process.
For the university, my work, my labor, was the only thing that mattered. The institution didn’t care about what was happening to me. I am still not sure why I was expecting them to.
Capitalism doesn’t give a shit about our losses or grief. Work remains. We’re still expected to do it. There’s still no space to grieve, even as there should be.
It’s our responsibility to address our catastrophic times and to act, to intercede, to make our students’ futures less grim. And we have to start now.
But I was even less okay than previously. Okay had left me stranded and might never appear again. I was not alright, and other parents weren’t either.
If institutions don’t care about us, they can’t expect us to care about them. They can’t expect loyalty. They can’t expect that people will stay.
It’s more of the same. I feel suffocated by the sameness; clawing at my throat will leave nothing but wounds that I’ll have to tend to. I don’t have time to tend to them. I remind myself to breathe, and I do.
Recent events remind us that our culture doesn’t prioritize women, even as we bravely recount our toughest truths. We get harmed, ignored, dismissed and belittled, over and over again. I’m sick of it.
I had chased enough without realizing that it was a place I could never get to. It felt elusive because it was. Enough kept me moving because I was afraid to slow down.